[continued from previous message]

Socrates.—Theatrical wit.—What could have made them laugh, like to see Socrates presented, that example of all good life, honesty, and virtue, to have him hoisted up with a pulley, and there play the philosopher in a basket; measure how many foot a
flea could skip geometrically, by a just scale, and edify the people from the engine.  This was theatrical wit, right stage jesting, and relishing a playhouse, invented for scorn and laughter; whereas, if it had savoured of equity, truth, perspicuity,
and candour, to have tasten a wise or a learned palate,—spit it out presently! this is bitter and profitable: this instructs and would inform us: what need we know any thing, that are nobly born, more than a horse-race, or a hunting-match, our day to
break with citizens, and such innate mysteries?
The cart.—This is truly leaping from the stage to the tumbril again, reducing all wit to the original dung-cart.

William Cartwright
Shakespeare to thee was dull, whose best jest lyes
I'th Ladies questions, and the Fooles replyes;  
Old fashion'd wit, which walkt from town to town
In turn'd Hose, which our fathers call'd the Clown;
Whose wit our nice times would obsceannesse call,
And which made Bawdry passe for Comicall:
Nature was all his Art, thy veine was FREE
As his, but without his SCURILITY;


Jasper Mayne's tribute to the deceased William Cartwright, where Cartwright is eulogized as a successor to Ben:
For thou to Nature had'st joyn'd Art, and skill.
In Thee Ben Johnson still HELD SHAKESPEARE'S QUILL:
A QUILL, RUL'D by sharp Judgement, and such Laws,
As a well studied Mind, and Reason draws.
Thy Lamp was cherish'd with suppolied of Oyle,
Fetch'd from the Romane and the Graecian soyle. (snip) 

W. Towers to William Cartwright:


...Thy skill in Wit was not so poorely meek
As theirs whose LITTLE LATIN AND NO GREEK
Confin'd their whole Discourse to a Street-phrase,
Such Dialect as their next Neighbour's was;
Their Birth-place brought o’th’stage, the Clown and Quean
Were full as dear to them as Persian Scean.
Thou (to whom Ware, thus offer’d, smelt as strong
As the CLOWN'S foot)

Cartwright, William, Jonsonus Virbius

...Blest life of Authors, unto whom we owe
Those that we have, and those that we want too:
Th'art all so good, that reading makes thee worse,
And to have writ so well's thine onely curse.
Secure then of thy merit, thou didst hate
That servile base dependance upon fate:
Successe thou ne'r thoughtst vertue, nor that fit,
Which chance, and th'ages fashion did make hit;
*Excluding those from life in after-time*,
Who into Po'try first brought luck and rime:
Who thought the peoples breath good ayre: sty'ld name
What was but noise; and getting Briefes for fame
Gathered the many's suffrages, and thence
Made commendation a BENEVOLENCE:
THY thoughts were their owne Lawrell, and did win
That best applause of being crown'd within..

_Mirth Making_, Chris Holcomb Sidney, _Defence of Poesy_: eikastike vs. phantastike


In his Ethics, Aristotle suggests that *changes in stylistic and substantive predilections indicate advances in civilization*. While enumerating the differences between the jesting of a BUFFOON and a witty gentleman, Aristotle compares each character
type to Old and New Comedy, respectively: "The difference (between a buffoon and a gentleman) may be seen by comparing the old and modern comedies; the earlier dramatists found their fun in obscenity, the modern prefer innuendo, which marks a great
advance in decorum; (4.8.6). This comparison suggest that smutty humor is less civilized than the more refined humor delivered through innuendo. (footnote pp. 199-200)

***************************
Sidney, Defense of Poesy
...But grant love of bewtie to be a beastly fault, although it be verie hard, since onely man and no beast hath that gift to discerne bewtie, graunt that lovely name of love to deserve all hatefull reproches, although even some of my maisters the
Philosophers spent a good deale of their Lampoyle in setting foorth the excellencie of it, graunt I say, what they will have graunted, that not onelie love, but lust, but vanitie, but if they will list SCURRILITIE, possesse manie leaves of the Poets
bookes, yet thinke I, when this is graunted, they will finde their sentence may with good manners put the last words foremost; and not say, that Poetrie ABUSETH mans wit, but that mans wit ABUSETH Poetrie. For I will not denie, but that mans wit may make
Poesie, which should be EIKASTIKE, which some learned have defined figuring foorth good things to be PHANTASTIKE, which doth contrariwise INFECT the FANCIE with unWOORTHie objects, as the Painter should give to the eye either some excellent perspective,
or some fine Picture fit for building or fortification, or containing in it some notable example, as Abraham sacrificing his sonne Isaack, Judith killing Holofernes, David fighting with Golias, may leave those, and please an ILL PLEASED EYE with WANTON
SHEWES of better hidden matters. But what, shal the ABUSE of a thing, make the RIGHT use odious?

*******************************
Sidney, Defence of Poetry

But, besides these gross absurdities, how all their plays be neither RIGHT tragedies nor RIGHT comedies (note - Ambisinister Droeshout), mingling kings and clowns, not because the matter so carrieth it, but thrust in the clown by head and shoulders to
play a part in majestical matters, with neither DECENCY nor DISCRETION; so as neither the admiration and commiseration, nor the right sportfulness, is by their mongrel tragi-comedy obtained. I know Apuleius did somewhat so, but that is a thing recounted
with space of time, not represented in one moment; and I know the ancients have one or two examples of tragi-comedies, as Plautus hath Amphytrio. But, if we mark them well, we shall find that they never, or very daintily, match hornpipes and funerals. So
falleth it out that, having indeed NO RIGHT COMEDY in that comical part of our tragedy, we have nothing but SCURRILITY, unworthy of any chaste ears, or some extreme show of doltihsness, indeed fit to lift up a loud laughter, and nothing else; where the
whole tract of a comedy should be full of delight, as the tragedy should be still maintained in a well-raised admiration.

But OUR COMEDIANS think there is no delight without laughter, which is very WRONG; for though laughter may come with delight, yet cometh it not of delight, as though delight should be the cause of laughter; but well may one thing breed both together. Nay,
rather in themselves they have, as it were, a kind of contrariety. For delight we scarcely do, but in things that have a conveniency to ourselves, or to the general nature; laughter almost ever cometh of things most DISPROPORTIONED to ourselves and
nature. Delight hath a joy in it either permanent or present; laughter hath only a scornful tickling. For example, we are ravished with delight to see a fair woman, and yet are far from being moved to laughter. We laugh at deformed creatures, We delight
to hear the happiness of our friends and country, at which he were worthy to be laughed at that would laugh. We shall, contrarily, laugh sometimes to find a matter quite mistaken and go down the hill against the bias, in the mouth of some such men, as
for the respect of them one shall be heartily sorry he cannot choose but laugh, and so is rather pained than delighted with laughter. Yet deny I not but that they may go well together. For as in Alexander`s picture well set out we delight without
laughter, and in twenty mad antics we laugh without delight; so in Hercules, painted with his great beard and furious countenance, in woman`s attire, spinning at Omphale`s commandment, it breedeth both delight and laughter; for the representing of so
strange a power in love, procureth delight, and the scornfulness of the action stirreth laughter.

But I speak to this purpose, that all the end of the comical part be not upon such scornful matters as stir laughter only, but mixed with it that delightful teaching which is the end of poesy. And the great fault, even in that point of laughter, and
forbidden plainly by Aristotle, is that they stir laughter in sinful things, which are rather execrable than ridiculous; or in miserable, which are rather to be pitied than scorned. For what is it to make folks gape at a wretched beggar or a beggarly
clown, or, against law of hospitality, to jest at strangers because they speak not English so well as we do? what do we learn? since it is certain:

Nil habet infelix paupertas durius in se,

Quam quod ridiculos homines facit.^48

[Footnote 48: "Unhappy poverty has nothing in it harder than this, that it makes men ridiculous." - Juvenal, "Satires," III. 152-3.]

But rather a busy loving courtier; a heartless threatening Thraso; a self- wise-seeming schoolmaster; a wry transformed traveller: these if we saw walk in stage-names, which we play naturally, therein were delightful laughter and teaching delightfulness,
- as in the other, the tragedies of Buchanan do justly bring forth a divine admiration.

But I have lavished out too many words of this playmatter. I do it, because as they are excelling parts of poesy, so is there none so much used in England, and none can be more pitifully abused; which, like an unmannerly daughter, showing a bad education,
causeth her mother Poesy`s honesty to be called in question.



*****************************

Greville - Life of Sidney

Neither am I (for my part) so much in love with this life, nor believe so little in a better to come, as to complain of God for taking him [Sidney], and such like exorbitant WORTHYness from us: fit (as it were by an Ostracisme) to be divided, and not
incorporated with our corruptions: yet for the sincere affection I bear to my Prince, and Country, my prayer to God is, that this WORTH, and Way may not fatally be buried with him; in respect, that both before his time, and since,experience hath
published the usuall discipline of greatnes to have been tender of it self onely; making honour a triumph, or rather TROPHY of desire, set up in the eyes of Mankind, either to be worshiped as IDOLS, or else as Rebels to perish under her glorious
oppressions. Notwithstanding, when the PRIDE of FLESH, and power of favour shall cease in these by death, or disgrace; what then hath time to register, or FAME to publish in these great mens names, that will not be offensive, or infectious to others?
What Pen without BLOTTING can write the story of their deeds? Or what Herald blaze their Arms without a blemish? And as for their counsels and projects, when they come once to light, shall they not live as noysome, and loathsomely above ground, as their
Authors carkasses lie in the grave? So as the return of such greatnes to the world, and themselves, can be but private reproach, publique ill example, and a fatall scorn to the Government they live in. Sir Philip Sidney is none of this number; for the
greatness which he affected was built upon true WORTH; esteeming Fame more than Riches, and Noble actions far above Nobility it self.

********************************

In Remembrance of Master William Shakespeare
Sir William Davenant (1638)

Beware (delighted Poets!) when you sing
To welcome Nature in the early Spring;
    Your num'rous Feet not tread
The Banks of Avon; for each Flowre
(As it nere knew a Sunne or Showre)
    Hangs there, the pensive head.

Each Tree, whose thick, and spreading growth hath made,
Rather a Night beneath the Boughs, than Shade,
    (Unwilling now to grow)
Looks like the Plume a Captain weares,
Whose rifled Falls are steept i'th teares
    Which from his last rage flow.

The piteous River wept it selfe away
Long since (Alas!) to such a swift decay;
    That read the Map; and looke
If you a River there can spie;
And for a River your mock'd Eie,
    Will find a shallow Brooke.

*****************************
Jonson
U  N  D  E  R  W  O  O  D  S .
MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.

XLII. — THE *MIND* OF THE FRONTISPIECE
TO A BOOK.

From death and dark oblivion (near the same)
    The mistress of man’s life, grave History,
*Raising the world to good and evil fame*,
    Doth vindicate it to eternity.
Wise Providence would so : that nor the good
    Might be defrauded, nor the great secured,
But both might know their ways were understood,
    When vice alike in time with virtue dured :
Which makes that, lighted by the beamy hand
Of Truth, that searcheth the most hidden springs,
And guided by Experience, whose straight wand
    Doth mete, whose line doth sound the depth of things ;
She cheerfully supporteth what she rears,
    Assisted by no strengths but are her own,
Some note of which each varied pillar bears,
    By which, as proper titles, she is known
Time's witness, herald of Antiquity,
The light of Truth, and life of Memory.

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)